Who will play in goal tonight?
Because that will tell me everything I need to know about José Riga’s role at Charlton.
Riga may just sit in the stands and allow Dyer and Matthews to pick the team, but they won’t in a million years put Thuram in over Hamer. Nego, AA and Reza may all deserve to start after what happened on Sunday, but Thuram over Hamer will mean Riga is no more his own man than Nookie Bear.
Yesterday I felt sadness, not because we sacked a manager, but because Roland Duchatelet stabbed the club in the heart. To Duchatelet we are not a community, we are a business. I am not a supporter, I am a customer. He talks of fan experience, well in a week he has put the prices of season tickets up, tried to remove fans from the front rows of the Upper North, insist others move their seat, and make Crossbars membership compulsory for a rather large price tag, then wants to dictate to the manager which team to pick, and then unceremoniously sacks him when he doesn’t jump to his tune and brings in one of his “company men” who when Addicks were fighting political elections was designing IT systems for a French insurance company.
Some of you may have forgotten what it is like to be a Charlton fan. What it means, what it stands for. Well, I haven’t.
Living overseas would ordinarily bring remoteness to following the trials and tribulations of a football club and a community even though I went weekly right up until I left the UK in 2003. But Charlton doesn’t allow you to do that, it’s a bond, a feeling that never goes away. Being a Charlton fan means more than just a result on a Saturday night and which owners, managers and players make a temporary stop in our consciousness.
It is a unique and frankly uncomparable experience to anything and everything else I have in my life, and I count myself very lucky.
Chris Powell understood it. Roland Duchatelet doesn’t have even the slightest interest in finding out. Good luck going tonight, I don’t think anyone knows what to expect.
I totally agree. That initial team sheet announcement will say so much. It’ll be a strange old atmosphere at The Valley tonight.
Perfectly put. I feel I have been mugged of part of my identity. I choose not to support SL reserves.
Agreed, these are defiantly bad days ahead it and could have been the last time we’d see Hamer In a Charlton shirt.
I agree totally C.A, if Thuram is picked to play tonite (unless Hamer is injured), my season ticket will be fluttering down from the upper north stand, I still have some doubts as to exactly the owners intentions with our club, but I am prepared to stand up and be counted again as I did those years ago on the march’s to woolwich, and the owner can stick his season ticket right up his Standard Liege!
I will always support the club, but I wont help fill the pockets of those who have no belief in it, I have supported Charlton for 63 years – since my Father first took me when I was 5. If we as supporters feel we are losing our club, then it’s time we once more stood up and fight for it back, within all aspects of the law.
Well said. Our new name is “Substandard Liege”. There will be spontaneous applause in minute three for Mr Powell
This is depressing
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2578563/It-stinks-great-club-like-Charlton-eighth-highest-attendance-English-football-history-turned-cheap-dumping-ground-MARTIN-SAMUEL.html
Raith – Not sure about the reference to attendances, but Samuels does hit home hard the negatives of Network Ownership. Only could happen to us couldn’t it?
I reckon the crafty Belgians will know we will all be eagle-eyed for this so let Paul Hart or others pick the side tonight and introduce the French Clown when they are ready (if not Saturday). If he starts tonight he might get booed off the park by his own supporters.
“Living overseas would ordinarily bring remoteness to following the trials and tribulations of a football club. But Charlton doesn’t allow you to do that, it’s a bond, a feeling that never goes away. Being a Charlton fan means more than just a result on a Saturday night [when?] owners, managers and players make a temporary stop in our consciousness.”
That is the very essence of being an Addick abroad. Thank you for saying it.
Mind you, some players and managers make a permanent stop in our consciousness, and CP, who I’ve only ever seen on TV and the internet, is prominent among them.
Thank you Jakartass.. You are right of course many players remain in our memories as men that did far more and just stop by. Many have helped mould the club into what it is.